Hunt for two prisoners who escaped using knotted bed sheets

A manhunt has been launched in Italy after two inmates, including a convicted murderer, escaped from Rome’s Rebibbia prison on Sunday night.



In an old-fashioned style jail-break, the pair cut through the bars of a window with a saw before scaling down the outer wall using a rope of knotted sheets. The men, both from Romania, then fled on foot.

At the time of their escape, they had been at a workshop in the prison’s new annex, where there were just two guards on duty for 150 inmates, the prison guards’ union, Sappe,said.



They added that the alarm system wasn’t working. The men have been named as 33-year-old Catalin Ciobanu, who was serving time for murder, and Mihai Florin Diaconescu, 28, who was in prison for burglary.